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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Player Piano, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Technology and Progress
Happiness, Self-Worth, and Passion
Class Division and Competition
Corporate Life vs. Human Connection
Summary
Analysis
Paul spends the next week alone in his house while everyone else is still at the Meadows—including, presumably, Anita. He pays just one visit to his new farm, hoping to find some comfort in doing work for Mr. Haycox. But what he discovers is that the work is hard and unrewarding, so he leaves and doesn’t go back. He also visits Ilium Works to collect his things. When he gets there, armed guards escort him to his desk.
Paul’s disinterest in the farm reveals that his grand ideas about leading a simplistic, machine-free life were unrealistic. He romanticized life outside the corporate world, failing to recognize that toiling away on a farm is quite difficult. After years of working a seemingly easy, high paying job, he’s not used to getting his hands dirty. Plus, it’s not as if he’s passionate about farming—it just seemed appealing compared to his desk job. Maybe if he were fully invested in the life of a farmer, he would find the work rewarding. As it stands, though, he still lives in a fancy house and hasn’t fully committed himself to farming, so it makes sense that his heart isn’t really in it.
Themes
Paul goes down to the police station to register, since anyone who doesn’t have a job is required to do this. He fills out a card, an officer puts it in a slot, and a machine sorts it into a large pile of “potential saboteurs.” Paul argues about this classification, but the officer says the machines are the ones to make this decision—they classify anyone with a college degree and no job as a “saboteur.” And, the police officer adds, the machines are usually right. On his way out, Paul sees a police car pull up with a prisoner; he’s shocked to discover that the prisoner is Fred Garth, but when he goes into the station to see what happened, nobody will tell him anything.
Once again, it’s clear that machines make the most important decisions in this society. In this case, they classify anyone like Paul as a potential danger to society. This suggests that people who are highly educated but unemployed have probably undergone the same realization as Paul: namely, that society’s celebration of automation is misguided, since machines have actually made life harder for anyone who doesn’t belong to the elite upper class of managers and engineers. Even Fred Garth, it seems, has come to this realization.
Themes
Paul goes to the bar and runs into Alfy, who tells him that the bartender he punched at the Meadows is still sneezing because of his nose injury. Alfy worked as part of the staff serving the employees at the Meadows—until, that is, the entire service staff was fired after management discovered somebody had vandalized the oak tree. This means that everyone who isn’t a manager is doing all the work, including “cleaning their own latrines.”
Paul learns in this conversation that everything at the Meadows has plunged into chaos. The vandalization of the oak tree was clearly taken as a direct attack on the company, which is why the entire service staff was fired. This has ultimately emphasized the unequal power dynamics within the company, since less powerful employees are suddenly expected to do things like clean up after their bosses. Although the corporate world seems so powerful, then, these events have revealed that it’s not as unshakeable as it seems.
Themes
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Alfy also surprises Paul by telling him that Fred Garth was the one who destroyed the oak tree. After this conversation, Paul asks the bartender if he’s seen Finnerty, but the bartender seems suspicious and says that nobody ever sees Finnerty—or, for that matter, Lasher—these days. He then gives Paul a drink laced with a drug that knocks him out.
The fact that Fred Garth is the one who vandalized the oak tree means that both of the candidates for the Pittsburgh job have turned against the company. This implies that the prospect of promotion and career advancement isn’t necessarily enough to get people to ignore whatever misgivings they have about the company.
Themes
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